playability

I’ve used many different methods to assess the quality of ball roll on putting greens. This is not the distance the ball rolls—that measurement is commonly called the speed of the greens.

That’s the question I was asking myself leading into the ＫＢＣオーガスタ tournament. Because it wasn’t just playing any kind of golf. It was professional golf, televised golf, and it also happened to rain 827 mm (32 inches) from the start of August until Friday morning of tournament week (August 27).

This chart shows almost a full season of bobble test measurements from Hazeltine National GC. I discussed measurements of smoothness and trueness of ball roll in this video, and I mentioned that I use and recommend the bobble test as a way to make these measurements.

When Cam Shaw wrote with a question about measuring smoothness and trueness, he mentioned that he’d searched my blog and didn’t find anything. “Wow,” I thought, “have I really written nothing about this?

Zoysia putting greens are common from Japan to Singapore because manilagrass—Zoysia matrella, or korai in Japanese—is tolerant of close mowing in the climate of East and Southeast Asia. The ball roll on zoysia putting greens is distinctive because the grass leaves are so stiff.

It’s been cloudy, and raining, and I wasn’t in a rush to cut the grass. I decided to skip mowing for exactly 4 weeks to demonstrate the difference in growth habit that I wish everyone paid attention to.

Playability is what it is all about, isn’t it? At least for putting greens, one wants to have surfaces upon which the ball rolls at a certain pace, and which have a firmness that is appropriate for the conditions.

I spent a morning with Brad Revill at Nikanti GC last month. I wanted to see the course, get some measurements, see the clipping volume measurement, and talk about turf management with Brad.

Yesterday I wrote about tools used to measure surface hardness. I’ve used all of those tools, and I prefer the golf course firmness tester from SDI (a 500 g Clegg impact tester with a domed head) for its ease of use and reliability.

There are various tools available to measure surface firmness, or surface hardness, of turfgrass. For golf course putting greens, I’ve used four different tools, and my preferred method is the golf course firmness tester from SDI.